Due to work, C++ getting rusty, and because this is my first inroad with allegro 5, I felt we needed to severely limit the scope of this project.

So the screenshot is not much to look at, and I'm afraid it will pretty much stay like that. We're going for a text-based puzzle game, based on navigating a dialog tree.

In spite of that, or actually because of that, we've got a pretty playable game already. And ALL the rules are in. I don't think I've ever done a speedhack where I had a playable game with all the rules fulfilled already on Saturday! Usually I still have three rules to implement on Monday morning.

Not to say it's all easy - I've built a custom interpreter for the dialog trees.

So my remaining time for Sunday will be spent polishing, and making sure there are no dead ends in the dialog trees.

I haven't got much more time anyway, because work will come back in full force on Monday and I need to get some rest.

One of the last remaining tasks for us was to pick a name. Too tired to put much thought in this, so we went with the first thing that came up. So the game is now called B.U.N.

I hope it's not too difficult. I have play tested it so much that I know the puzzle inside out. But how is it going to play out? Is the puzzle too easy or too hard? Is it going to be entertaining enough to keep going until the end?

It was clear from the start that the dialog tree needed to be in a config file. It started off simple but it quickly grew into a pretty advanced interpreter with nested if/else statements. I resisted the temptation to add boolean operators.

But the great thing was that this allowed Max to spend a lot of time writing storylines. Usually when we do these competitions she starts idly designing some placeholder graphics without a clear idea what the game is going to be like. And she has a lot of storyline ideas but they are severely limited by how fast I can write code. This time though, she could focus on storyline ideas from the start, pretty much from Saturday morning, and graphics are almost an afterthought!

Finally had a chance to play the game. I enjoyed it. Simple and descriptive. As I played, the environment formed in my imagination of the paths I could take. It was simple enough to get going and then you face the challenge of getting past Dr. Evil. I never felt stuck nor did I feel overwhelmed. Great weekend entry! - Onewing